Despite dating an all-star football player and setting a record for the highest-grossing music tour in history, Taylor Swift has been under criticism lately for her private jet usage.
Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, owns different accounts that track the takeoffs and landings of public figures’ planes and helicopters. In addition to tracking travel logs, Sweeny has also been calculating the emissions released from their trips. The information he uses comes from the Federal Aviation Administration’s publicly available data logs and data pools collected by environmental activists who track the broadcasts the aircrafts send.
Northeastern Global News released an article analyzing a list of celebrities who generate the highest private jet emissions. Swift’s jet was in use for 170 out of the first 200 days of 2022 and emitted 8,293.54 metric tons of CO2e, about 1,000 times what the average person generates in a year. Twenty-one other celebrities were included in the list, with the average celebrity shown as emitting around 3,376.64 tons of CO2e.
In December of 2023, Sweeney received a cease-and-desist letter from Swift’s attorney saying she has dealt with stalkers since she was a teenager.
“You are notorious for disregarding the personal safety of others in exchange for public attention and/or requests for financial gain,” the letter stated. “Because the offending accounts share ‘live’ updates on her destination and the exact time our client will arrive at a given location, you essentially provide individuals intent on physically harming her…a roadmap to carry out their plans.”
Sweeney seemed to not let the cease-and-desist letter phase him, as he wrote an email to Swift’s team saying he believed in the importance of transparency and public information. The argument between the two has sparked a conversation about free speech concerning environmental action, since Sweeney is merely collecting information available to the general public. He told The Washington Post that his accounts offered incomplete outlines of where Swift might be, similar to the schedules she publishes of her tour dates or which NFL games she’ll potentially attend.
Swift’s publicist told the Post analyses of her jet usage were misconstrued, since her jet is often loaned out to other people, and she bought more than double the carbon credits needed to offset her emissions. The situation between Sweeney and Swift is still unfolding, as both seem unwilling to back down, and public figures should keep an eye out of what this altercation could mean for freedom of speech.
